War, What is it Good For?

Is it any wonder this man was known for his skills with the ladies? Something he is somewhat better recognized for are his books: the ones that he wrote. This is, indeed, the young Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, the world's greatest novelist.

I finished, War and Peace, over the Christmas break. It took me about a year of reading here a little, there a little. Now I frequently pull the book out at night to thumb through my favorite passages.

Here, read this is one: Just to explain a bit of the piece, Boris and Nickolay Rostov are soldiers in the military, they are also childhood buddies. Enjoy!

At that instant the door opened.
"Here he is at last!" shouted Rostov. "And Berg too. Ah, petisanfan, alley cooshey dormir!" he cried, repeating the saying of their old nurse's that had once been a joke with him and Boris. "Goodness, how changed you are!" Boris got up to greet Rostov, but as he rose, he did not forget to hold the board, and to put back the falling pieces. He was about to embrace his friend, but Nikolay drew back from him. With that peculiarly youthful feeling of fearing beaten tracks, of wanting to avoid imitation, to express one's feelings in some new way of one's own, so as to escape the forms often conventionally used by one's elders, Nikolay wanted to do something striking on meeting his friend. He wanted somehow to give him a pinch, to give Berg a shove, anything rather than to kiss, as people always did on such occasions. Boris, on the contrary, embraced Rostov in a composed and friendly manner, and gave him three kisses. It was almost six months since they had seen each other. And being at the stage when young men take their first steps along the path of life, each found immense changes in the other, quite new reflections of the different society in which they had taken those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they were last together, and both wanted to show as soon as possible what a change had taken place.

Don't you feel like you were inside Rostov's head, yet totally aware of what is going on with Berg and Boris? I especially relate to Rostov and his struggle to do something with this unique, intense feeling of love, friendship & celebration. Yet Tolstoy had it right. This is how it often plays out. The two people do whatever is customary even though it may fall short of what they truly feel. And it's all right because that is all we've got: the customary.

Another comment about this piece, it reminds me of a comment I posted long ago on a Writing Fellows blog in college. I was making a case for Americans to greet one another with a kiss like the Latin culture does. It just feels better. I remember citing that Christ's apostles greeted one another with a "holy kiss," so we should at least go for a greeting kiss. Maybe I've lost some of the love over the years because I don't think I endorse such a policy now. I even feel awkward customarily greeting a latina. Pobrecito, yo. Maybe that will change again after this summer...